Bizarre Podcast: Space Puppets - Episode 46: This is a Wayne Thing
Added 2025-02-04 19:01:09 +0000 UTCComments
Another Red Dwarf episode with a partially similar premise is Camille (Series IV, episode 1). The crew encounters a creature that appears to each of them as their ideal mate and adapts her personality to each of them. The difference is that each of the crew sees her as that at the same time, which Camille finds overwhelming. It's a fun, sweet episode (sweet for Red Dwarf, anyway).
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2025-02-07 01:03:18 +0000 UTCThey probably shoulda just shot Scorpius.
Esper Derek
2025-02-06 01:19:22 +0000 UTCPretty important mistake here, I think- Talikaa does *not* notice Sikozu when Sikozu goes for the orbs- she makes it to them completely undetected. In fact, Sikozu feels compelled to shout "CRICHTON DON'T LET HER!" when it looks like Talikaa is about to kill him. At least as far as Sikozu is concerned (and the show doesn't really give us any reason to believe she's wrong), it isn't a bait, Crichton isn't pretending to give in to despair- he actually has done. He has resigned himself to death in that moment, and it's only her shout that manages to bring him back together long enough to blast the spider. I've never been a particularly huge fan of this episode, but it's one that has stuck with me- despite feeling like the weakest entry in an otherwise almost unbroken streak of straight bangers. I think precisely because of how sad and uncomfortable the emotional energy is here. Even as artless and clunky and tawdry as the material might be, the actors manage to invest it with a feeling of great vulnerability. It's not an incorrect comparison by any means, but I don't think I'd ever have gotten to "Crackers Don't Matter" on my own. Crackers doesn't feel like this, it doesn't feel *anything* like this. There's nothing playful in Chiana's hypersexuality here- more an air of nervous desperation. I know at least one commentator (Jacob Clifton, writing for TWOP) who wanted to connect this to the long overhang of Crichton Kicks, to the sexual assault that Chiana implicitly suffered. That this is what Talikaa brings out of Chiana because this is her "strongest trait"- because she's the sex character, hur hur hur- but because it's the thing that she most needs to believe about herself. That she is this person who can approach sex as this casual fun thing that doesn't have to mean anything to her. It's not a great stretch, I think- in fact, it's difficult to *avoid* the connection, given how the episode opens. I don't think it's a mistake that it's Chiana that reacts to the presentation of Talikaa, and reacts in the way she does. The pod is I think somewhat hesitant to approach this topic, and understandably so- I'm hardly comfortable with it myself- but it's difficult to talk about this episode in particular without doing so. John too is under that overhang, though I suspect his problem is a little more total. He is freshly out of goals. At the beginning of the season he had lost almost everything- his lover, his friends, his enemies- but he still had his goal, to crack the wormhole problem and get home. Now he has his friends back (and his enemy), but he's been home and had to commit himself to not staying there. So now he's in this awful aimless place where his life is largely suffering and he has no reason to keep going. Talikaa's interference reveals more than creates that great depression we see in him here. Of course John Crichton is suicidal. Why wouldn't he be? I'm even willing to give a nod to Paula Arundell's performance, which for a regular character we might call poor. As Talikaa, she reads as contemptuous of her prey- barely bothering to try. It works! Well, that was a much longer comment than I was intending to write. Excited for the rest of the season- Prayer in particular.
Jae Armstrong
2025-02-05 20:16:50 +0000 UTCThis episode reminds me of two episodes of Red Dwarf, Polymorph and Emohawk: Polymorph II. Maybe it's a thing in folklore or mythology that they're both drawing from, I dunno. If you want to see a similar premise with a comedic bent, check them out. (Series III, episode 3 and Series VI, episode 4).
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2025-02-04 23:43:57 +0000 UTC
